Don Was Reflects on Working on Bob Dylan's Under The Red Sky Album

12/17/2012.

(CBS Local) In 1990, Don Was was one of the hottest producers in music, if not the hottest... And then he got what he thought would be the job of a lifetime: producing Bob Dylan's Under The Red Sky album.

"That was the gig I wanted all my life!" he told CBS Local. "From the time I was 14, all I wanted to do was play bass for Bob Dylan! And when I became a producer, I thought, 'If I could produce Bob Dylan, that'd be incredible!' And then it actually happened. The odds of that happening, man, are like, absurd! But the universe came together, and there I was, with Bob Dylan!"

Unlike the other artists he'd worked with, Dylan didn't need a "comeback" album; 1988′s Oh Mercy (produced by Daniel Lanois) was seen as a strong return to form. But Was assembled an all-star band of session musicians (including future American Idol judge Randy Jackson and John Mellencamp's drummer Kenny Aronoff), and invited in an A-list of guest artists (Slash, Elton John, and Stevie Ray Vaughan among them). But still, Under The Red Sky was judged harshly by critics and fans.

Although Was had worked with Iggy Pop and Bonnie Raitt, he says he wasn't really prepared to work with Bob. "I was maybe a little out of my league, experience-wise, when I did Under The Red Sky. I was really just getting started as a producer. There were mistakes that I made "